Darkness Bound

by Stella Cameron

  Tarhazian narrowed her eyes at Sally, who shrank back until she hit the wall. “And you want help with this plan? Very well, Sally, we’ve noticed you get along better than you should with these humans. So supply humans for any use one of us may have. It is not your job to decide who to snatch, only how, and as many as possible. You’ve loafed around playing sweet old granny for too long.”

  Brande puffed out his chest. “As I have already told you, we have our own sources of recruits. Do what you will among yourselves. That is not why I’m here. You have forgotten our greatest problem.”

  “Problem?” Tarhazian returned her dark gaze to Brande.

  “You control the veil. I want you to share that control with me.”

  Tarhazian laughed aloud, and very loud. “The veil is ours. Since the Deseron are extinct it will remain that way.”

  “Deseron?” Colin frowned. “The abandoned females from New Orleans? The castoffs left by their parents because they had no paranormal gifts? They are characters from stories, Tarhazian. I’m surprised to hear you speak of them.”

  “They most certainly are real,” Tarhazian responded icily. “Or at least they were. They were the products of mixed marriages between humans and someone from our world. Some offspring showed they had inherited the gifts of the paranormal parent, but others, these Deseron, revealed nothing of their potential as infants. Such a waste.”

  Tarhazian was right about the origins of the Deseron but wrong in thinking they no longer existed. And Sally, terrified at the thought of the truth being discovered, felt her responsibility to protect Leigh even more strongly. Though Leigh didn’t yet know what she was, Sally knew Leigh was Deseron and she was not the last of her kind. They must be sheltered. The extraordinary blood that allowed them to mate with werehounds also replenished at an unbelievable rate if they fell into the hands of vampires.

  Sally had first locked on to Leigh’s vibrations when she had been at Gabriel’s with her husband, Chris. Since then Sally had kept tabs on her in case there was ever a time when her particular traits would be needed by the werehounds and because Sally wanted to help Leigh if she was in trouble one day.

  “Mmm,” Colin sighed. “I understand they were a vampire’s wet dream. They could not be turned but they could be all but drained, and come back again for more.”

  “They are more than a mere snack, Colin,” Tarhazian snapped. “Deseron have the ability to see the veil—and use its magic. That was a talent their parents never foresaw.”

  Colin made an impatient sound. “You tease me with such charming possibilities. Brande is correct. Our first concern must be to plan how best to use this island for our benefit and stop the dogs from interfering.”

  Suddenly Brande flung himself around to face them. “Silence, all of you. You are fools not to realize what has happened. The Deseron had the ability to mate successfully with the werehounds. In doing so they formed partnerships that cleared the way for some werehounds to move freely among humans—they were accepted.”

  “What is your point?” Tarhazian asked. “It seems that with a good talking to the hounds, and perhaps a lesson or two, we can be secure again.”

  “The point, your majesty,” Brande sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “is that Niles, the leader of the hounds, has found a female with whom he expects to mate successfully.”

  Another silence fell.

  “The blood element is confirmed,” Brande continued. “One of my zombies brought me her taste, so I am sure. Leigh Kelly is a Deseron, my friends.”

  Sally looked at Colin with horror. He drooled, his extended fangs ripping his own flesh, his blood mixing with saliva and oozing from his smiling mouth.

  chapter TWENTY-FIVE

  LEIGH WAITED UNTIL she could be sure Niles’s eyes were closed. Then she sneaked from the bed.

  She put her own clothes back on in the bathroom, in the dark, and slipped toward the kitchen, where she hoped to find her coat and boots. Both Jazzy and Skillywidden slunk along behind her as if they, too, were trying not to awaken Niles.

  Trying to keep her mind from going over what had happened with him was impossible. He said he loved her and she believed him, but she did not understand why he would reject her physically as he had. The thought embarrassed her too much to ignore. Had she let her heart run away with her? Was it too soon to let another man inside her life?

  She loved him, too, but she would not let a hasty decision set her heart back to the dark place she had come from after losing Chris.

  A small, round basket, blue, with a sheepskin pillow inside, rested on the floor near an oak table with two chairs. Jazzy promptly jumped in and curled up. After eyeing the dog for a few seconds, Skillywidden followed with a single, dainty bound and landed directly on top of Jazzy—who rolled his eyes.

  If Leigh hadn’t been so disturbed she would have laughed, especially when the cat used Jazzy as a mattress and stretched out on top of him.

  At least Leigh’s clothes were completely dry now, and warm. Her short boots were nearby and she pulled them on.

  Her coat was nowhere to be seen.

  “Why are you leaving like this?” Niles said behind her.

  She spun around so fast she almost lost her balance but stepped out of Niles’s reach when he made a move to steady her.

  “I’m sorry I woke you up,” she said. “I tried hard to get out without making a sound.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? That you want to escape from me?”

  Without meaning to, she touched the cut above her temple. It felt bruised.

  “That hurts, doesn’t it?” Niles’s mouth set in a hard line. “Some ice would help.”

  She felt deeply sad. They might want the same thing, but Leigh couldn’t banish the conviction that Niles was keeping something from her. “I’ll put some on it when I get home.”

  “I’ve got ice here.”

  If she knew how, she would just spit out her feelings, tell him she felt rejected and that she thought he was keeping something from her. He watched her, unblinking, until she looked away at the animals.

  “Thanks on the ice, but… Blue couldn’t get one paw in that pet bed.” Tiny Skillywidden was on her back now, all four feet in the air but watching Niles and Leigh with those transparent lavender eyes.

  Niles laughed, his blue eyes still watchful.

  He wouldn’t be thrown off topic by the change of subject, but Leigh would take any bought time she could get.

  “You’re right,” Niles said. “Blue wouldn’t fit. I got the bed from Sally. She had an extra one lying around and I said I’d like it for when Jazzy came to visit. I need some coffee. How about you?”

  This was even worse than any scenario she could have imagined. She couldn’t tell him that what she wanted was a clean, fast getaway, that she wasn’t as sure of him as she needed to be, or that it mortified her that he had been the one to put the brakes on sex between them. “I’ll put some coffee on for you,” she said.

  “I won’t be able to drink it if you’re not with me.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s true.” He put two mugs on the table.

  Leigh couldn’t think what to say next. She started the pot.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “But you’re mad at me.”

  Why couldn’t she get a break here? “I’m not mad at anyone. It’s just time for me to go home.”

  “Through the dark? In horrible weather? On your own? After all the things that have gone down?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” she told him honestly. “But I’ve got to get over being scared to be in my home.”

  He had opened the refrigerator to take out cream and paused. “Yes, you do. But that doesn’t mean you have to go running up there now.”

  Why didn’t the man ever wear a shirt, darn it? “I’m not running up… ” Yes, she was.

  The way he looked
at the ceiling reminded her of Jazzy.

  He pulled the lid off a container in the refrigerator and extracted several pieces of raw bacon. As soon as he set the cream on the table he began to chomp through one slice after another.

  “Ick,” Leigh said.

  “Ick, what?”

  She widened her eyes innocently and said, “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes you did.”

  “Okay.” After what he’d done to her ego, why should she save his feelings? “Eating raw bacon is awful. Jazzy likes that, but he’s a dog.”

  Niles looked at the final slice, dropped it into the sink and turned on the disposal. While he washed his hands he gave her an odd, sideways glance. “I eat when I’m uptight.”

  “So do I. Usually fudge or cookies.”

  The coffee was ready and he filled the two mugs. Pulling out a chair he said, “Sit, please.”

  “Do you really never get cold?”

  “No,” he said. “Would you be more comfortable if I got a shirt on?”

  Probably. “Of course not. I get cold so easily, that’s all. I’m jealous.”

  They sat side by side, a less comfortable arrangement than Leigh had been ready for. “You were really kind to help me out,” she said, both hands wrapped around her mug. “I felt very safe here, and I thank you for that.”

  “I like having you here.” He poured cream in his coffee.

  If she were a man she would tell him he sent mixed messages, but that would only make the situation worse. “I’m so sorry I embarrassed you, Niles. In fact, I’m mortified. And I am sorry.”

  “Embarrassed me?” He screwed up his eyes. If they weren’t quite so blue they would be easier to resist—maybe.

  “I was too forward. I made you uncomfortable.”

  For an instant his face lost all expression and her heart thudded. Then she frowned, suspicious he might be trying not to look amused. And then he laughed. With the back of a hand over his mouth, he chuckled.

  “Just because you’re kind it doesn’t mean you’re attracted to me—in that way,” she said.

  Niles stared into his coffee and didn’t answer.

  Rumbling thunder rolled and rain hit the windows like fine grit. Leigh looked up in time to see narrow strips of rainbowlike colors arch over the area outside and stream toward the ground. Niles was also glancing at the windows but showed no sign of having seen anything unusual.

  “You’re going to have to stay here,” he said. “I need to get the fires going at Two Chimneys. It’ll be too cold up there.”

  Leigh got heated again. Now she didn’t want to be diverted. “I’m not a forward person. It’s always been hard for me to be intimate, at least at first.” When you’re in a hole…“I don’t even like wearing a swimsuit in public.”… stop digging.

  “That’s stupid,” he said, then immediately threw his hands in front of him, palms facing Leigh. “I’m not saying you’re stupid. I only meant you should be very comfortable in a swimsuit anywhere.”

  Leigh looked down and gripped her mug tightly. “You hated it when I got too close to you.”

  He got up from the table so abruptly he had to catch his chair to stop it falling.

  “I’m sorry,” Leigh said. “I keep saying the wrong things and making everything worse. I’m going now.”

  Niles thumped back down into his chair and gripped her forearm. “I didn’t hate it when you… I want you close to me all the time.” He rubbed his face hard, shaking his head at the same time.

  “I think you want that to be true. But I wasn’t—right—I wasn’t what you wanted. I wasn’t pleasing—oh, forget it. I’m sorry.”

  “Damn. If you say you’re sorry again, Leigh, I… I’ll do something drastic.”

  She gaped at him. He was furious and, wouldn’t you know it, fury suited him.

  “You know how I feel about you in every way,” he said.

  Tears welling in her eyes were less than welcome.

  “I covered you up in bed because I was protecting you from me,” he said. “You have to be ready, really ready for me first and you’re not.”

  “How do you know?” she asked in a voice that cracked.

  “I loved a woman once. Very much. She loved me, too, and we were going to marry. In the end she couldn’t do that—she didn’t want me anymore.”

  Leigh’s heart started a hard, uncomfortable tattoo. “You haven’t told me your story. I didn’t want to push you.”

  “Now you have to know it and I’ll understand if you walk straight out of that door.”

  He tipped up his chin to eye the big, round clock on a wall. It ticked loudly. “It was in Wyoming.”

  Leigh nodded, “Where you’re from.”

  “Cattle,” he said and his eyes lost focus. “My grandfather’s ranch was big. He brought me up after my parents died.”

  She felt sad for him. She and Jan didn’t talk about it—although Gib liked to push them for more details—but they had never known their own parents. All they had known was foster homes. “I bet you were close to your grandfather.”

  “Yes. A storm came in early. We didn’t expect it and there weren’t enough hands to get things done. We had a couple of feet of snow on the ground almost before we knew it was going to be a problem.

  “We did okay with the stock but there were stragglers way out. I couldn’t ask the men to go again. My grandfather was sick. I went alone. Never intended to go too far, just wanted to see if I could get to a few of them.”

  He bowed his head, pushed his mug back and forth on the table. The blue-black hair at his neck curled forward and it shone. His hands were big, long-fingered, and hard. They were capable and Leigh figured they must be very strong.

  “It was so cold,” he said.

  She could only think it must have been arctic, since he didn’t seem to feel the cold at all here.

  “I got disoriented and dark came in. I went what I thought was the way back but I must have been going the opposite direction. Then I couldn’t push my horse anymore. The lantern blew out but I managed to relight it. Then the thing slipped through my fingers and went out again. I couldn’t find it.”

  Leigh had both hands over her mouth. She felt as if she was waiting for a terrible story to end badly. But he was here so he hadn’t died.

  “The next thing I knew I was flat on my back just seeing shadows and feeling like I’d been hit over the head. Only I hadn’t. There was a dog standing over me. Biggest damn dog you ever saw. At first I thought he was a wolf and he’d have been big for that. But the shape was wrong. He was a dog.”

  “Was it Blue?”

  His features twisted. “No, it wasn’t Blue. And it was too late by then.”

  Making words was getting tougher. “Why do you say it was too late? Too late, how?”

  “I was torn open by its teeth and claws. Changed forever. The dog stayed with me, half-dragged me all the way back to the ranch. Then, standing in the bitterness of that storm, he showed me what I had become. He demonstrated my future.”

  Niles confused her.

  “I tried to explain to Abbey but it was too much for her. I had to leave. I joined up with a band coming West for the Gold Rush.”

  Leigh’s mind was blank for seconds. She blinked and started calculating. “But that was way back in—”

  “Yeah.”

  “But—”

  “I was a man and a hound, a werehound. The animal in the snow did that to me—but he also saved my life.”

  Leigh stood up. “Why are you saying all this?”

  The corners of his mouth turned down sharply. “Because it’s true.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  He turned up his palms on the table. “I’m a werehound, part of a team of werehounds.”

  Leigh backed up a step. “I don’t believe you.” She thought about it. “I’ve never even heard of werehounds.”

  “But you have heard of werewolves?”

  “Of course.”

  �
�Of course. And now you’ve heard about us. We were always much fewer in number and our makeup is different. We are never fighters from choice.”

  “Okay,” she said. “How am I supposed to react to you saying these things? You’re human again now?” Even discussing this felt bizarre.

  “I hope to be soon.” For a moment, they stared at each other in silence. “Do I scare you?”

  Leigh’s blood drained to her feet. “You don’t scare me. You’ve just got a weird sense of humor.”

  Niles jumped up and tore the outer seam of his jeans apart over the left thigh. “What d’you think made that? What does it look like?”

  If she could have screamed she probably would have. “You are frightening me now. There. Are you satisfied?”

  “No, dammit, I’m not. Look at this and tell me what it is.”

  The corner of the room was at Leigh’s back. She had no place to run.

  Niles took one step closer and held the destroyed leg of his jeans open.

  She made herself look and all the air went out of her lungs. From the inside to the outside of his heavily muscled thigh stretched big, deep, silvery marks. Old scratches—or gouges.

  “What is this, Leigh?”

  “A big… animal… scratched you.”

  “Exactly the way I told you. I should have died from a wound like that but the big dog made sure I healed fast. That’s one of our skills. We’re not as practiced as werewolves, but we’re good. Now, turn around and don’t turn back until I tell you.”

  She did as she was told, and closed her eyes.

  Subtle noises, quiet but foreign, came from behind her. Rustling, cracking, a long moan and a series of whines. Leigh wiped sweat from her brow.

  Niles poked her between the shoulder blades and she spun around at once.

  And looked into the face of a dog almost as tall as she was. Russet in color with a thick, glossy coat, huge feet, alert ears, and eyes that could be black—or very dark blue.

  In a vision that was more a flash, she remembered a wolflike dog, russet colored with eyes that seemed dark blue rather than black. That dog had grabbed her, made her climb on his back, and she had held on to his fur while he carried her to safety. He had been enraged, flying across the room, destroying anything in his way. Yes, he had flown with her and she had lost consciousness.